


I'll give you shelter from the storm

by glitteratiglue



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Introspective Bucky, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 16:17:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5212493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteratiglue/pseuds/glitteratiglue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky likes rainy days. If they happen to include Steve, that's even better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll give you shelter from the storm

**Author's Note:**

> London had an entire day of crappy, rainy weather, so I stayed inside and wrote this.
> 
> ** Translation into Русский now available [here](https://ficbook.net/readfic/3817922), thanks to the lovely [hellionhound](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hellionhound/pseuds/hellionhound).

Bucky stirs, letting his eyes open slowly. The bed is soft under his back and Steve is next to him, fast asleep and peaceful, mouth open against the pillow like he hasn’t a care in the world.

It’s still early. He doesn’t want to wake Steve; most of the time, they’re kept busy with Avengers missions, and Captain America needs his sleep.

Bucky doesn’t mind doing his bit, fighting at Steve’s side like they did all those years ago, but sometimes a mission briefing — that a HYDRA cell in Bulgaria needs flushing out, or a giant alien squid has attacked New Jersey, for example — comes at a damn inconvenient moment, like when Bucky has Steve wrapped up in his arms, his face pressed into the crook of Steve’s elbow where it’s warm and soft.

When they were kids, Bucky was always the affectionate, tactile one, shoving at Steve’s shoulder and throwing a casual arm around him. Bucky doesn’t see much of himself in that boy from the past who gave away pieces of his heart so easily, but he still likes touch; that’s one thing HYDRA couldn’t take from him.

Here in the future, Bucky and Steve get plenty of time off, it just isn't always together — Coulson’s new SHIELD gives them both a fair amount of solo missions, tailored to their own particular skills. As a result, it’s not often they get a morning to just _be:_  to potter around, sip coffee and go through the papers (Bucky likes the sports pages, Steve reads the current affairs and then goes for the style section).

Bucky plans to savour it, but first, he’ll let Steve sleep a little longer. He grabs his t-shirt from the floor where he left it the night before, and shoves it on before getting out of bed.

Coming back from a quick trip to the bathroom, Bucky listens; he can hear a soft tapping noise on their window. He pulls the curtain back an inch. Sure enough, it’s rain.

He smiles. He likes rain.

These days, it isn’t always easy for Bucky to think about what he likes. It’s been more than six months since he turned up at Steve’s door, wide-eyed and shivering. Bucky had no idea what he was looking for, but there he was anyway, looking for the man from the bridge, who held pieces of Bucky's past in his strong hands like they were precious things.

Steve has been patient, and SHIELD’s armies of therapists have helped, but Bucky has found that becoming a whole person again is about more than just recovering your memory; it’s about choosing to live, to reach for light instead of allowing yourself to sink into darkness. Some days, there’s more darkness than light, but always, Steve is there, calm and unwavering. He understands when Bucky doesn’t want to be touched (these days, that rarely happens), leaves Bucky to pace the living room in the middle of the night when he can’t sleep, and says nothing even on the nights Bucky takes their duvet into the bathroom and curls up on the cold tile with it wrapped around him.

In this future, Bucky still finds choices difficult. When he first came to live here, it was exhausting, being confronted with endless options on a daily basis: eggs or cereal, red or blue shirt, baseball or football on the TV, long or short hair (Bucky likes eggs best, he’s kept the long hair, and usually manages to switch the channel to baseball without Steve noticing).

Half the time, Bucky wouldn't know what to say if anyone asked him what he likes (he does like Steve, though, and living like a real person. He likes that a lot).

But he’s always liked rain. Rain is deep in Bucky's bones, a sense memory, like some kind of thread that connects his past and future. It might be wet and cold, but to him, rain feels like living.

It's no wonder he likes rainy days.

He liked them back when he was the Asset, when he would spend more time outside than was strictly necessary in the midst of precipitation, feeling the rain soak his tac suit, the tiny droplets caressing his face and hair. It pissed off his handlers (that’s probably part of why he did it), but the real reason he longed for rain on his skin was that it felt like touch, and he craved touch so desperately, the kind that wasn’t about conditioning or pain (still does, actually, though he gets more than his fair share from Steve).

When he and Steve were little, rainy days meant they couldn’t go out to play. Steve would complain, saying he wanted some fresh air, but Bucky never minded all that much. Those days, they would squeeze into Bucky’s little bed and pore over their favourite books: usually  _Just So Stories_ or _Treasure Island_. Steve would get out his sketchbook and doodle scenes from the stories, and it was Bucky’s job to read bits out in a dramatic voice. On rainy days, Bucky’s creaky iron bed became their cosy little fort of dreams, a safe place where they could shut out the world, where Steve could be warm and hopefully never get sick again.

If Bucky’s being completely honest, he liked those times better than the fine days when they could run up and down the sidewalk and play baseball with the neighbourhood kids.

Sometimes his ma baked apple pie on wet days. They’d all crowd around the kitchen table and Bucky’s sisters would fuss over Steve and insist that he had an extra piece of pie (in the war, Bucky had thought about it a lot, how Steve had no family anymore but him, and he’d felt undeservedly rich for having a kind mother and three little sisters to come back home to).

Padding away from the window, Bucky heads for the kitchen with a mind to put the coffee on (if Steve wakes up now, he’s likely to drag him back to bed immediately, and then they won’t get any breakfast at all). Coffee granules, two spoonfuls. Filter. Water. Switch it on. Listen to the sputter of the coffee dripping its way through the filter. It’s the small things Bucky finds joy in, these days: a decent cup of joe is just one of them.

Bucky grabs some eggs from the fridge and starts whipping up an omelette. Thinking about it, it’s no surprise that rain means so much to him; many of the formative experiences of his life have involved rain (and they usually involved Steve, as well).

The first time he kissed Steve was on a rainy London night, back in 1943. They were on their way back from the pub; Steve was sober as a nun, and Bucky was pretending he could still get drunk (he’d had nine whiskies, and the fact that he was still stone-cold sober terrified him out of his wits).

“You didn’t have to say you’d come with me, Buck,” Steve had said. The street was pitch dark, but Bucky had felt Steve’s hand curling around his forearm, stopping him. It was drizzling, the rain falling down in steady sheets.

And Bucky had wondered how Steve didn’t know that it had never been a choice for him. He’d felt cold inside, because he needed Steve to know how much his promise meant, that he wouldn't do this for anyone else, that he would follow Steve into hell if it meant he could be at his side. Bucky wanted to say it, but the words got stuck in his throat.

So he’d kissed Steve, trying to forget about his own fucked-up head and itchy trigger finger. In the midst of the blackout, Bucky had leaned into Steve, chasing away the chill in his bones with the heat of Steve’s mouth, warm and wet against his. There was no-one to see them in the darkness, nothing but shadow wrapped around them and the soft fall of icy rain from the skies above, trickling down where their faces were pressed together (back then, neither of them knew what cold really was; they found out soon enough.)

In their modern Brooklyn kitchen, Bucky pours himself a cup of coffee. That memory used to hurt more, but now he can see it as a part of him and Steve; though it was decades before he kissed him again, they're here now _._ Having Steve is more than Bucky has ever deserved, he's sure, but he'll take it anyway.

Thinking, he decides to set the whisked eggs aside and wait until Steve’s awake to cook them. He goes to stand by their big bow window and sips his coffee slowly, wondering if it’s too early to wake up Steve. The raindrops creep along the outside of the window, buffeted by the wind, making tiny patterns that are blown away just as quickly. Bucky presses metal fingertips to the cool glass, absent-mindedly tracing the water trails.

In a while, he might have a look at the paper, possibly do the crossword if he's in the mood for it (Bucky doesn't particularly care for the crossword; he prefers sudoku, but it's something to do). Often, rainy days turn into snuggling on the couch with Steve, channel-hopping between baseball and reruns of the  _Barefoot Contessa._ Their couch is old and sagging, in an ugly shade of olive, but it's squashy and soft, and Bucky thinks it's the best place in the world to cuddle Steve. Cuddling is a key part of rainy days (or any day, really), and Bucky likes that just fine.

Other times, they do their own thing, and Bucky enjoys that, too. Usually, he'll have the couch to himself and play video games while Steve sketches at the kitchen table, looking up every so often to smile when Bucky curses in frustration over retro  _Mario_ or _Metroid_  (he prefers old games; they're a lot harder, and someone with his reflexes needs a bit of a challenge).

Something else Bucky _really_ likes doing on rainy days is Steve. He’ll have him on their bed, curtains flung wide so he can see the mist of grey clouds hanging over the city and watch the streaks of rain hitting the windowpane. Bucky likes to take his time, worship every inch of Steve with hands and mouth, because on rainy days they aren’t busy, and he’s got the time to do it.

If they feel like it, they light a fire in the grate and drag the couch cushions onto the living room floor (they still haven’t got around to getting a rug, but Bucky kind of likes it this way). Bucky drapes the big duvet over top of them so they can stay warm, spreads Steve out on the cushions and fucks him slowly, between sloppy, open-mouthed kisses and reverent whispers of Steve’s name in his ear. Sometimes it’s the other way round — Bucky isn’t all that fussy — but there are days when Bucky  _needs_ to feel Steve, needs him arching and gasping beneath him, and nothing else will do.

There’s a skylight above the fireplace. Afterwards, they always lie there, tangled up together, and Bucky stares up at the rain, finding peace in the cadence of Steve’s slow, steady breathing and the soft drumming sound of the water on the glass overhead (it’s a good thing Sam got the ‘easy clean’ couch when he and Natasha chose their furniture, because Bucky ends up laundering the cushion covers pretty often).

Bucky squints at the skylight; it’s not throwing much light into the room, not on a day like this. He intentionally hasn’t put the lights on, because he likes the in-between gloom of a dull day; it’s comforting (HYDRA used to keep him in dark places, and the brilliant lights always burned at his eyes like needles when he was woken from cryostasis).

The door creaks open, and Bucky looks up.

Steve is there, with sleep-soft eyes and messy hair, looking relaxed from his long rest. He looks comfortable in his holey t-shirt and sweatpants, like _home_ , and Bucky just wants to snuggle into the soft fabric and never let Steve go.

“Morning,” Steve says, his voice a little scratchy. “You rain-watching, again, Buck?” He smiles fondly.

“Yeah. Put the coffee on, though.” Bucky yawns, running a hand through his hair. He puts his empty cup on the windowsill.

“Thanks.”

Bucky doesn’t miss the way Steve’s eyes flicker with concern. Steve knows without Bucky even saying anything that he’s tired, vulnerable and just wants someone (Steve) to touch him.

He knows it’s going to happen, but it’s still a relief when it does. Steve steps into his space and pulls him into a tight hug, fitting his head into the hollow of Bucky’s neck, that soft place his t-shirt doesn’t cover, where his neck meets his shoulder. Steve is warm; he smells like laundry soap and sweat, and Bucky curls into the touch, buries himself in the warmth of Steve.

He makes a soft sound into Steve's neck, and feels Steve laugh against him, but he doesn’t let go, just strokes his big hands up and down Bucky’s back soothingly.

“Better?” Steve asks, drawing back.

Bucky doesn’t answer, just kisses him, not caring that they both taste like morning and last night’s stale beer (and in his case, coffee). He threads his metal fingers into Steve’s hair, tugging him closer, sliding his tongue into Steve’s mouth. Steve deepens the kiss so it's wet and filthy, and presses right up against Bucky, like he's trying to get as close to him as physically possible. His hands are tight on Bucky's hips, tugging at the waistband of his sweatpants. Bucky pants into Steve's mouth helplessly, one hand in Steve's hair and the other one grasping at his ass; they're both half-hard already, all thoughts of breakfast forgotten.

He lets Steve drag him back to the bedroom, kissing him while they shuffle across the floor in an ungainly sprawl of limbs.

When Bucky pulls away to yank the curtains open, Steve just grins; he’s used to having the rain as an audience.

The raindrops pitter-patter on the window, and Bucky crawls back onto the bed to finish what they started.

He _loves_ the rain.

**Author's Note:**

> Title by Bob Dylan.
> 
> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://glitteratiglue.tumblr.com) if you want.


End file.
